Are You Afraid of the Dark?
by ack1308
Summary: Danny and Annette Hebert had a dark secret long before their daughter Taylor was born. Now widowed, Danny finds raising his daughter harder than he expected. When he finds out that she is being bullied, his reaction may be ... extreme.
1. Chapter 1

**Are You Afraid of the Dark?**

* * *

Part One: Turning Point

* * *

 _Disclaimers:_

 _1) This story is set in the Wormverse, which is owned by Wildbow. Thanks for letting me use it._

 _2) I will follow canon as closely as I can. If I find something that canon does not cover, I will make stuff up. If canon then refutes me, I will revise. Do not bother me with fanon; corrections require citations._

 _3) I will accept any legitimate criticism of my work. However, I reserve the right to ignore anyone who says "That's wrong" without showing how it is wrong, and suggesting how it can be made right. Posting negative reviews from an anonymous account is a good way to have said reviews deleted._

 _4) Any resemblance to a particular movie is not an attempt to plagiarise that movie, but rather, an homage._

* * *

 **Tuesday, January 4, 2011**

* * *

 _She looks so small._

That was his first thought upon seeing her in the hospital bed. Skinny she might be, but she was tall for her age; however, her height was not apparent when lying down. Worse, some cruel trick of the light made her features seem emaciated, as though she had lost weight in the last few hours.

Leaning forward, he brushed an errant strand of hair from her face; the rest of it had been bundled back out of the way. There were a few scrapes and bruises there, including the makings of a black eye. _She looks like she was beaten up, not shoved in a locker. I almost wish she had been. There would be more chance of finding out who did this._

He had seen many faces in repose; some had appeared angry, some surprised. But most of them had given the impression of serenity, of being at peace with the world. From what he could recall, Taylor's sleeping face had been much the same, once upon a time. But here and now, even sedated, she was not at ease; her body twitched, her eyes rolling from side to side beneath the lids. To him, it looked as though she was struggling with an unseen opponent, one that he could not assist her with. To a man who had sworn to protect his child from the evils of the world, this was almost intolerable.

"What's happening to her?" he asked, trying to keep the anger from his voice. Unheeded, his fists clenched, the nails biting into his palm. "Why is she like this?" His eyes fell on her wrists, held down to the side of the bed by soft Velcro cuffs. "Why in God's name is she restrained?"

The doctor at his side drew a deep breath. "Because she's not yet in her right mind, Mr Hebert," he explained carefully. "When she was let out of the locker, she was irrational, attacking everyone she saw. Some of the time she was clawing at herself, at the bugs and the filth on her." He gestured at the contusions on her face. "Some of that was done by her. We were understandably concerned that she might harm herself, so we put the restraints on her. When she's coherent enough to ask for them to be removed, we will take them off again."

Danny closed his eyes for a moment, trying to damp down the pain welling in his chest. "But she'll be all right?" he asked, eyes still closed. "She'll recover?"

"Sooner rather than later, yes," the doctor – Danny hadn't even bothered looking at his nametag yet – assured him. "She's suffered a massive trauma, but once her mind has had a chance to work its way through the worst of it, and we've eased off on the sedation so that she can take in the world again, she should be lucid. But she'll need care and attention. Make no mistake; she _will_ be fragile for a while."

"I understand." Danny was no stranger to trauma and the effect that it had on people. "When will she know who I am?"

"Tomorrow," the doctor told him. "We'll start easing the sedation back then. She should be awake and lucid by tomorrow afternoon. If she isn't … well, we'll deal with that when we come to it. But I have every expectation that she will be." His tone was confident, not forced. Danny believed him.

"Can I – can I be here?" He hated the pleading tone in his voice, the supplication. But this was _Taylor_. There was absolutely no benefit to be had in alienating the doctor.

"I would much prefer that you were, Mr Hebert," the doctor agreed. "A familiar face would be a very good thing when she comes out of it."

"Will she be able to tell us who did this?" Danny's fists were clenched again.

"Now that, I can't predict," the doctor told him. "Some people block memories out at times like this. For others, it's burned into the brain." A slight shrug. "Gentle questioning may get the answer, it may not. Just remember -"

"I got it. She'll be fragile." Danny's voice was curt, sharp. "I'll be as gentle as I need to be."

Despite his tone, the doctor essayed a smile. "Good. You can also expect emotional outbursts and irrational demands. She may well choose to sleep with the lights on and the bedroom door open. This is a natural reaction; don't be overly concerned. Therapy -"

"- is expensive," Danny pointed out. "The school is denying culpability. They're covering her bills and that's about it." His tone made it clear what he thought about that.

This time, it was the doctor's lips that thinned. "That's absurd. This happened on their watch -"

"Preaching to the choir," Danny reminded him. "I've been through all this." He had gone right up to the line, stopping just short of threatening bodily harm to that skinny, narrow-minded bleached-blonde _bitch_ behind the principal's desk in Winslow. She had been adamant that all due care had been taken, that the school could not oversee every single child every minute of the day.

However, there had perhaps been something about his posture, something about the look in his eye, that had caused her to relent. Or maybe it was a gesture to reduce the chances of him suing the school; the check she had written would cover Taylor's hospital stay with a little extra on top. _This in no way admits any kind of culpability,_ she had warned him. _It's just the school trying to help you out in your time of need._

He had wanted to tear the check up, to express his anger more physically, but the fact was that his finances were at a current low. Between unexpected expenses and the depressed state of the economy in Brockton Bay, he simply wouldn't be able to cover her hospital bills. Not easily and not quickly, anyway. At least, not without uncovering certain assets that would cause more problems than they solved.

And besides, his father had taught him long ago to never hit a woman.

* * *

 _I met her on the docks; I was working as Dad's enforcer, while she was Lustrum's favourite trigger-girl. Fortunately for the both of us, our interests coincided; the ABB was trying to ship out a bunch of teenage runaways to the brothels of Bangkok. Dad didn't know what the cargo was, but he knew it was illegal and the Asians hadn't slipped him any kickbacks to let it through. I was the one he sent to express my displeasure and find out what the cargo was._

 _I met Annette for the first time atop a cargo container at about half past one on a particularly chilly February morning. We sparred for a little, before establishing our respective credentials, then we decided to join forces. When I found out what the ABB was trying to slip past Dad, I didn't even think twice, just offered my help, no strings attached._

 _We found the container and the guards assigned to it at more or less the same time. I went in, while Annette covered me from a distance. She saved my life twice during that fight; I saved hers once. I'm not sure exactly when it was I started to fall for her, but it might have been about the time she shot the guy in the eye, seconds before he would have gutted me with a baling hook._

 _ **from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert**_

* * *

Taking leave of the doctor – his name was Franklin, Danny finally bothered to note – he strode down the steps outside the hospital to where his car waited at the curb. Climbing in, he fastened his seat belt but then sat with the keys in the ignition for the longest time.

He stared at the car ahead, but did not see it; behind his eyes, he was engaged in a struggle between what he knew he should do and what he wanted to do.

 _I made a promise._

 _Yes, but they did this to Taylor._

 _It doesn't matter. A promise is a promise._

 _It_ _ **does**_ _matter. They hurt Taylor._

 _It shouldn't matter. I promised her._

 _Yeah, but she didn't know this was going to happen._

 _A promise is still a promise._

A tap on the window startled him from his reverie; he jerked in surprise, looking around, to see a police officer peering at him through the window. The officer made a 'wind the window down' motion; Danny nodded, drawing in a deep breath to regain his calm. He realised belatedly that he was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white under the strain; slowly, one hand at a time, he let it go.

The window creaked and clattered as he worked the handle to wind it down. "Can I help you, officer?" he asked as politely as he could manage.

"You looked a little stressed there, sir," the policeman said. "Are you all right?"

Jerkily, Danny nodded, although he felt as far from all right as any father would, under the circumstances. "I … sort of," he admitted. "My daughter's in the hospital. She'll be fine, but I'm still getting used to the idea that she's been injured."

"Ah, yeah," the officer agreed, relaxing slightly when he heard the explanation. "I know the feeling. I have three myself; ten, twelve and sixteen. You just want to wrap them in cotton wool, you know?"

"Yes. You do." Danny felt himself warming to the man. _He understands._

"But we can't have you hanging about outside the hospital," the police officer noted in a _let's be reasonable with the stressed-out dad_ tone. "Is her mother still in the picture?"

"She died a couple of years ago," Danny replied shortly. "Car accident."

"Oh. Well, I'm very sorry to hear that, sir." The officer nodded sympathetically. "It can't be easy, raising a child on your own. My advice to you is to go home, relax, maybe have a few drinks. Go out in the back yard, swear a bit, throw something at the fence." His voice hardened slightly. "I would suggest _not_ going to a bar. Chances are you'll start a fight with someone and you really don't want your little girl seeing you all banged up, right?"

Danny blinked. _That's actually good advice._ "You've done this before, yeah?"

"A time or two, yeah," agreed the police officer. "Both ways. The first one works better." He gave Danny a friendly nod. "You get on home now, sir. You'll feel much better once you've gotten it out of your system and had a good night's sleep."

"I'll do that, officer. Thank you." Danny started the car and moved off, not bothering to wind the window up. It was January, after all, and he rather liked the feel of the brisk air on his face. As he drove, he pondered the police officer's words, as well as those of Dr Franklin.

The conversation had given him time to cool down, to think rationally. He was still angry over what had happened to Taylor, very much so. However, there was still the chance that the forces of law and order – he permitted himself a mild snort – would carry out their duly appointed function and bring those responsible to justice.

No, what mattered right now was Taylor's happiness. She would wake up and he would be there. But he wanted to do more for her than just be present. _She's going to need care and attention. I need to do something nice for her, something that proves to her without any shred of a doubt that I'm on her side._

The lights ahead turned red; without even thinking about it, he brought the car to a halt. Still thinking hard about the problem he had set himself, he was only vaguely aware of the figure approaching from the left … right up until the pistol was stuck in his face.

"Keys and wallet, four-eyes!" the shaven-headed punk demanded. "Outta the car! These are _my_ wheels now!"

Danny was mildly shocked; not that the carjacking was going on, but that he hadn't seen it coming. _Annette would have given me merry hell over this._ He turned his mild gaze on the punk. "Shouldn't you be beating up a minority somewhere?" he asked. "Seriously, I've got enough problems to deal with right now."

The punk stared and jabbed the pistol at him; it ground into his cheekbone, just below his glasses. "I'm giving you the count of five to get outta the car, motherfucker!" he snapped.

With a sigh, Danny took hold of the kid's wrist and dug his thumb into the pressure point on the back. The Empire Eighty-Eight punk yelped with pain and involuntarily opened his hand, dropping the weapon into Danny's lap. "I _said,_ I've got problems to deal with," Danny reiterated patiently. He tilted his head as he twisted the guy's wrist to keep him off balance. "My little girl's in the hospital. Do you think she'd like a pet? Maybe a kitten or a puppy?"

"Ahh! Fuck! Fuck!" screamed the punk. "Let go! Let go! Fuuuck!" With his free hand, he pounded on the side of the car, unable to formulate a more reasoned response.

With his free hand, Danny picked up the pistol and used the steering wheel to push the slide back. A moment's glance into the breech was all he needed. "Seriously?" Letting the slide snap forward, he tossed the pistol on to the passenger seat. "Kid. A gun is not a magic wand. It's a _machine._ It needs cleaning and it needs lubrication. Take care of your gun, it'll take care of you."

He would have said more, but the lights chose that moment to turn green; deciding to swap one lesson for another, he put the car into gear and let the clutch out. The car had gone through the intersection and ten yards beyond before Danny figured it was time to release the punk's wrist. Glancing in the mirror, he could see the shaven-headed thug as a vague form rolling and bouncing on the asphalt behind the car.

 _Puppy,_ he decided. _I'll get her a puppy._

* * *

He did not see, as he turned the corner, another shaven-headed young man in Empire Eighty-Eight colours, step from a doorway. The man was already holding a phone; he used it to dial a number.

* * *

 _We worked well together. I was the better close-in combatant, while she had the edge over me with pistols and rifles. During our time together, I tutored her in every dirty trick my father ever taught me, while she instructed me in how to shoot._

 _Dad wasn't thrilled that I was quitting the docks, but then, Lustrum wasn't too happy about Annette leaving her crew either. But we didn't care. She was the only one for me, and I was lucky enough to be the only one for her._

 _After Taylor was born, we made a mutual pact that if either of us was killed, the other would quit the killing business and settle down to raise Taylor properly. I never expected that she'd die in something so stupidly mundane as a car accident._

 _ **from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert**_

* * *

The bell on the door of the Four Paws pet shop tinkled; Mabel looked up from behind the counter. A motherly type who had never quite managed to have children, she lavished care on her furry charges, and did her best to make sure that pet was matched with owner.

As always, the noise of the bell roused the various caged pets to respond. Some of the puppies yapped, while others sniffed at the air. The cats pretended indifference, though nearly all reacted in one way or another.

The man who had entered was tall and skinny, probably only a few years short of her own _cough-fifty-cough_ age; he was balding, wore glasses and had a weak chin. Mabel didn't speak to him, watching intently as he approached the wall of cages.

Some customers knew more or less immediately what they wanted; others spent very little time before they made their decision. Her current customer fitted neither category; he seemed honestly unable to make up his mind. _Either he doesn't know what he wants, or … he's buying for someone else, and he doesn't know what_ _ **they**_ _want._

Lifting the hinged leaf, she stepped out from behind the counter and moved toward him. He looked around warily as she approached; she smiled to show her good intentions. "May I help you?"

Turning to face her, he shrugged slightly. "Maybe? I'm trying to pick out an affectionate pet for a fifteen year old girl. An emotionally fragile one."

She smiled slightly. "You're going to have to narrow it down a bit."

He frowned, apparently puzzled. "Pardon me?"

Mabel chuckled briefly. "Honey, teenagers have two qualities. They're really good at overdoing emotion, and they all think that they personally invented angst."

The man sighed. "She's a bullying victim. She's been subjected to a particularly mean prank and I want her to feel loved when she gets out of the hospital."

"Oh. Uh, sorry." Mabel immediately felt contrite. "I shouldn't have joked about it. Uh … is she allergic to anything?"

"Not that I know of," he replied.

"Well, then," she said briskly. "Let's have a look at this little fellow." She expertly opened one cage, then captured the resident puppy within, lifting it out, she settled it into the crook of her arm. "This one's a boy. He's been fixed, had all his shots and he's a friendly type." To underscore her point, the puppy licked her hand.

Her customer eyed the dog closely. After a moment, he shrugged. "What breed is it?"

"Not sure. No pedigree papers with this pup, that's for sure." She rearranged the creature so that she could examine him more carefully. It was some sort of short-haired breed, with almost comically floppy ears and a dappled red and white look. "Bit of beagle, maybe some basset. Wouldn't be surprised if there was some lab in this thing's family tree. All affectionate dogs." She held the puppy out. "Want to hold him?"

"I … uh, maybe?" he hedged.

She rolled her eyes. "Aw, c'mon. You're buying a pet for your little girl, but you're gonna be there, too. Want to make sure you get along with him too, you know."

"Ah. Right." He accepted the squirmy warm bundle into his arms. Mabel knew immediately that he hadn't spent much time holding dogs or cats. Holding them was totally unlike holding a baby; where babies were uncoordinated, puppies knew exactly what they were doing with their limbs. This one wriggled around in his arms until it could look up at him with a disconcertingly bright, intelligent gaze.

Mabel was watching them both, a slight smile on her face. "I think he likes you."

"How can you know that?" Unbidden, his hand crept up to smooth back those adorably floppy ears, the short hair soft under his hand. The puppy stood up on his arm, and for a heart-stopping moment, she thought it was making a bid for freedom. But instead, it licked his face.

Her smile widened. "Just a wild guess."

* * *

The puppy only whimpered a little as Danny bore him from the shop in a plastic carrier. Danny could hear the tiny nose sniffing at the gaps in the carrier, picking up who knew what messages in the brisk January breeze.

The oversized carry-bag in Danny's other hand held a basket, a leash and collar, various puppy toys, a bag of puppy chow and a bottle of puppy shampoo; Mabel had been a very adept salesperson. Danny had known con artists, back in the day, who would have gotten less money out of him.

 _It's all for a good cause._ He dumped the paraphernalia in the trunk and placed the puppy in its carrier on the passenger side seat; after a little work, he managed to get the seatbelt around it to make it more secure. As he did so, the puppy sniffed and licked at his fingers through the gaps in the plastic. "It's okay, boy," he murmured, feeling foolish for talking to an animal as if it were a person. "We'll be home soon." Unexpectedly, he was rewarded by the sound of the puppy's tail thumping inside the carrier.

 _Maybe this will work out well after all._ Strapping himself in, he started the car. _I hope Taylor likes him._

* * *

 _Once we went freelance, we worked at building up our reputation without putting our real names and faces out there. Potential clients would contact us by email, then we would get back to them and let them know what to expect. They only tried to stiff us a few times, then word got around that this was not a great idea._

 _Marquis was one of our more regular clients; he appreciated our professionalism. He never tried to pull anything dodgy on us, always paid us on time, occasionally with a small bonus for a job well done. In return, we gave him preferential treatment when it came to picking clients. This was the case right up until he was taken down by the Brigade._

 _After that, our client base began to dry up. More and more capes were coming into the city, and Annette and I had a rule; we didn't go after capes. They were far too unpredictable, not to mention dangerous. We both had our cover jobs, and we started spending more time doing them than our other line of work. Between that and the fact that Taylor was getting smarter by the day, or so it seemed, we were working on making the reality fit the narrative._

 _That's not to say we didn't do_ _ **some**_ _work, of course. Just not all that much._

 _ **from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert**_

* * *

 **Wednesday, January 5, 2011**

* * *

"Taylor? Can you hear me?"

Taylor didn't want to wake up. There were reasons that she wanted to stay asleep. If she remained asleep, then the weird noises and odd flashes of light in the back of her mind stayed there and she didn't have to think about them. But the voice was insistent and the soft warm blanket of forgetfulness was drawing away from her.

Slowly, reluctantly, she opened her eyes. Everything was fuzzy, but she thought she recognised at least one person. "Dad?"

Her voice was husky, barely even qualifying as a whisper, but he must have heard her, or at least read her lips. "I'm here," he assured her, leaning over her. She heard something tearing, then something was unwrapped from each of her wrists. He took her hand in his and squeezed it tightly.

She squeezed back as hard as she could, as she felt tears springing to her eyes. "Oh, _Dad,"_ she whimpered, then coughed at the dryness in her throat.

"Help her sit up," murmured a male voice; immediately her father's arm was behind her shoulders and lifting her while pillows were slid in behind her. He squeezed her in a hug, holding her close. Weakly, she hugged him back; some of the terror began to recede.

"Are you thirsty, Taylor?" asked the male voice, once he'd let her settle back against the pillows. "Nod if you're thirsty."

Taylor nodded immediately; a squeeze bottle was held up to her mouth and she was given a couple of mouthfuls of water, just enough to take the edge off her thirst. It was barely cooler than luke-warm but it was still the best thing she had ever tasted.

Next, a light was shone into each eye, then her glasses were handed to her. For the first time since awakening, she could see the world clearly. Her father, looking more than a little haggard, was watching her carefully. A nurse and a doctor were also in the room, but she barely paid any attention to them.

"Taylor." His voice was soft, gentle. At some point he had recaptured her hand. "Do you remember anything of what happened?"

Involuntarily, she thought back to the locker; the horror, the terror, the utter stench. The machine beside her gave a warning beep as she felt her heart begin to race, the sweat springing out on her forehead. Her control began to slip and the crackling noise in her ears began once more, as did the odd formless blobs of light across her inner eye. _I'm going mad. Or I already am._

"No," she mumbled, shaking her head. "No, I don't -"

"Mr Hebert ..." warned the doctor, but her father was already acting.

"It's okay, Taylor," he soothed her, leaning in to hug her again. "You don't have to talk about it. You don't have to think about it."

"Oh god," she whimpered. "Oh god, it was _horrible ..."_

"Sh, sh, shhh," he murmured, holding her close to him. "You're here now. You're safe. And there's someone here who wants very much to meet you."

"Huh?" She was just a little confused.

Letting her go, he ducked below the level of the bed, giving her a precious few seconds to get the visual and auditory hallucinations under control. Not all the strange sounds went away, however; there was still an odd scratching and whining noise that she had been trying to ignore ever since she woke up, with only middling success.

It stopped, and she congratulated herself on her self-control. Then her father stood up again and she finally realised that what she had been assuming to be a particularly stubborn hallucination was instead the doing of a perfectly ordinary ... puppy.

Confused, she blinked. "Dad?"

"Yes, Taylor?"

"Why do you have a dog?"

"Because I think you need it," he said. "He's yours, after all."

"What." His words made no sense at all.

"He's yours." Carefully, he placed the puppy on to her lap; it sniffed at her fingers, then licked them. She stroked his ears, marvelling at how soft they were, as the puppy began to clamber determinedly up her stomach toward her face.

"We've never had a dog before." The statement sounded inane even to her own ears.

He looked contrite. "I know you asked for one occasionally," he agreed. "But the time never seemed right. Now it does."

Wrapping her arms around the bundle of fur, she held it gently. "What's his name?"

He smiled to see her holding the puppy. "That's up to you."

She looked down at her new dog, who was rapidly making himself at home. "I think … Chewie."

"What, like the Star Wars character?" His tone was amused. "He doesn't look much like him."

"No." She smiled. "Because he's chewing my pyjama sleeve."

He grinned in reply. "Well then, Chewie it is."

Taylor leaned in toward Chewie and kissed him on top of the head. "Hi there, Chewie," she breathed.

Chewie, for his part, laid off worrying Taylor's sleeve and licked her face.

"So, do you like him?" Her father actually sounded concerned.

Her eyes misting over, she hugged the puppy – _her_ puppy – as tightly as she dared.

"I _love_ him."

* * *

Danny left Taylor playing with the puppy and moved into the corridor with Dr Franklin.

"How is she?" he asked bluntly. "Can I take her home?"

Franklin's grimace told him more than he wanted to know. "I don't like that idea right at this moment, Mr Hebert," he confessed. "She's more agitated than she lets on; her heart rate was elevated even before she woke up, and it's only eased off after you gave her the dog. Personally, I'm worried about her blood pressure. We really need to do more tests. And then there's the infections."

"Infections?" Danny didn't like the way this was going. "What infections?"

"Nothing serious," Franklin assured him. "Just a few scratches and scrapes that got material from the locker in them. Minor right now, but I'd feel a lot happier with a course of hospital-grade antibiotics inside her."

"So you're saying what?" asked Danny. "She needs to stay in the hospital?"

"Just for the next few days, until her condition improves," Franklin said. "If she goes home now, she has a chance of getting really, really sick. And I'm still concerned about her mental state. With your permission, I'd like to get in a child psychologist to talk to her."

"I still can't really afford therapy for her," Danny warned him. It wasn't really true, but if Taylor did actually turn out to need therapy, it would take him a little time to arrange payment in a legal fashion.

"This won't be charged as therapy," Franklin countered. "We need to see what her mental state is, find out if the agitated state will pass easily or not."

"Oh. Right." Danny nodded. "I can see that, yeah."

"In the meantime, the more you visit her, the better," the doctor advised him. "And bring the dog. She's obviously smitten by it. In fact, seeing the effect it's had on her already, that pup might end up having more to do with her recovery than any of our fancy medical techniques."

"Well, I was already intending to," Danny agreed.

Dr Franklin shrugged. "Puppy therapy. It's a thing."

* * *

Taylor sat in the wheelchair with the IV tree attached, watching as her father walked Chewie in the park-like grounds surrounding the hospital. The puppy bumbled happily through the grass, stopping and sniffing at everything that could possibly be of interest. He peed on everything he sniffed at, causing her father to hitch his eyebrows in mild surprise.

"Is it just me," he asked almost plaintively, "or did we not give him that much to drink?"

She giggled, enjoying the sunlight, the cool breeze and the company. "Your guess is as good as mine."

Alerted by the sound of her voice, Chewie turned and started toward her. Attached to the animal by a leash, her father perforce followed. He watched as Chewie scrambled right up to her feet and sniffed at them, then licked them.

"Oh god," she blurted. "That feels so weird."

"You'll learn soon enough what it's like to be woken up by a puppy slobbering in your ear," he said, grimacing from the memory. "It's quite an experience."

"Wow, Dad," she exclaimed looking at him in some surprise. "Letting him sleep on your bed now?"

He looked away. "He whines."

"Softy," she accused him cheerfully.

"Once you get home, he's your responsibility," he told her in an attempt to change the subject. "Got it?"

She grinned as he lifted the puppy to nestle in her arms. "Got it." Apparently tired out by his exertions, Chewie rolled over, snuggled in and went to sleep.

"I don't get the wheelchair," she complained as he began to wheel her back into the hospital. "Why can't I just walk?"

"Because you've suffered a massive trauma, and some of that was physical," he said. "Doctor Franklin wants you resting as much as possible, and if you were on your feet, you'd be running around after that dog."

"Yeah, maybe." She didn't exactly deny it, absently scratching Chewie behind the ear. He snuffled and one leg kicked a few times.

"No maybe about it. I know you." He stopped pushing and knelt down beside her. "I just want you to get better."

"How soon?" she asked, a break in her voice. "I _hate_ it here."

"A few days, no more," he promised. "Doctor Franklin just wants to make sure there aren't any really big problems about to surface. I'll visit every day with Chewie."

"Thanks." She freed one arm from under the sleeping puppy to wrap around his neck. "And thanks for getting him for me. He's _gorgeous."_

He smiled self-consciously, putting his arm around her back. "Hey, if I'd known getting a dog would make you this happy, I would have done it years ago."

"Yeah." She leaned against him, looking fondly down at the sleeping puppy. "I really, really love him."

He ruffled her hair. "I know. Doctor Franklin knows. People on the _fifth floor_ know."

"Oh, ha ha."

Chewie moved in his sleep, and Taylor disengaged her arm from her father's neck to steady the puppy. Her father took that as his cue to keep pushing her toward the hospital doors.

She was silent as the automatic doors slid aside for them; as they rolled down the corridor toward the lifts, she stroked Chewie's ears. It was only when the elevator doors had closed behind them that she spoke again. "I don't want you to go."

"I'll stay as long as they'll let me," he promised. "Me and Chewie both." He pressed the button for her floor. "In the meantime, do you have any idea who …" He let the words trail off.

Instinctively, she knew what he meant. "No, and I don't even want to think about it." She curled in on herself like a wounded animal, wrapping protectively around Chewie. "Every time I even start to think about it, I want to throw up." He couldn't see her face, but from the sound of her voice, she was about to start crying.

"It's okay," he soothed her, ruffling her hair. "It's all good. I'm not going to ask you that any more. We can talk about whatever _you_ want to talk about. Okay?"

She sniffled. "Okay. Let's start with how come you let _my_ dog sleep on _your_ bed."

"Oooh." He mimed clutching his chest, just as the elevator doors opened. "A mortal wound. I am slain." Cheerfully, he grinned at the two old ladies waiting for the lift, and pushed Taylor out into the corridor. "You fight dirty. I'm proud of you."

* * *

" _Yes, sir, what is your order?"_

Danny cleared his throat. "One large Big Mac meal with extra fries. And two burger patties, no bun, no sauce, no salad."

" _I, uh, beg your pardon? Two patties?"_

"That's correct." He grinned. "There's a perfectly reasonable explanation. I just need to show you."

" _Uh, okay."_ The attendant gave him the price. _"Drive forward to the window, please."_

Danny let out the clutch; the car rolled forward. As he pulled to a halt, he reached across to where Chewie was lying obediently in his basket on the seat – he had learned 'stay' relatively quickly – and lifted the puppy so that the attendants inside the shop could see him. "See?"

"Aww, he's so _cute!"_ gushed the girl at the window. She waved at someone inside the shop, and an older lady appeared. She also melted at the sight of Chewie's happily panting face; when the meal came out to Danny, they had added several extra patties as well as some strips of bacon.

"Well, _you're_ certainly popular," he observed as he pulled away from the shop. "They didn't even charge me for your food." Chewie made no reply, as he was busy attacking a strip of bacon.

They drove home in companionable silence, broken only by the tiny growls as Chewie wrestled with the bacon. Not being a very large dog, he was having trouble with it. However, being both hungry and stubborn, he wasn't about to give up. Danny grinned and ate fries.

* * *

"That the guy?"

The shaven-headed punk, decorated with gravel rash and bandages, nodded. "That's the sonovabitch."

"Good. Follow him."

The car pulled out of the parking lot and followed the sedan down the street. Two other cars fell in behind.

* * *

He pulled the car into the driveway and shut the engine down. Getting out was a little bit of a trial, as he had to carry Chewie and the basket as well as the fast food he had ordered. The basket and the food went on top of the vehicle while he locked the car, then he retrieved them and carried the lot around to the back door.

Chewie yapped at something in the darkness; Danny, concentrating on getting the key into the lock, shushed him. A car drove past on the side road, momentarily distracting him, and then he had the door open. Once he was inside and had the door closed, he put Chewie down again; the puppy pranced around his feet as he put the bag of food on the kitchen table.

"You can smell it, can't you?" Danny asked the dog, amused. "Well, give me a chance to get sorted -"

The back door crashed open; at the same time, there was a loud _crack_ from the direction of the front door, followed by a less than impressive thud against the door itself. He spun sideways, reaching for a knife from the draining rack. His hand folded around the handle and he went in for the kill.

They had pistols, he registered somewhere at the back of his mind. Some part of him had understood that from the beginning and had made the choice to close the distance.

* * *

 _When going against firearms, you've got to either increase the distance, including cover, to the point that they can't hit you. Or you've got to get right up in the shooter's face, to the point that you can push the gun barrel aside. The former approach has the benefit that if you're behind solid cover and he can't see you, then he can't hit you. The latter approach is good in that if you've got a knife or something similar, you can stab him. A lot. Knives don't run out of ammo, after all._

 _So few gunmen expect their opponents to come_ _ **at**_ _them._

 _ **from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert**_

* * *

They weren't even wearing body armour. He pushed the first gun aside and stabbed the man twice up under the ribcage, then spun to slash the blade across the man's throat. Blood spurted from the horrific wound, the coppery smell filling the air. The second man was trying to get a sight picture; in Danny's opinion, he should have started shooting the moment that Danny engaged the first one.

 _Oh well. His loss._ Danny dived, rolled, came up inside the man's guard. The gory blade opened his second opponent from crotch to throat; the stench of more noisome substances joined that of blood. As the man fell away, hands clutching at his escaping intestines, Danny grabbed the chair and spun with it, intending to throw it at the third man.

A pained yelp told him too late that Chewie had been cowering under that chair; one of the legs must have caught him. Out of the corner of his eye, Danny saw the puppy skidding sideways, out of control, across the worn linoleum. Toward the open cellar door. The tumble down those steps to the hard concrete below would injure the dog badly, perhaps fatally.

He didn't hesitate; the chair left his hands, tumbled over and over in midair. It passed Chewie, landed across the cellar door, jamming in the opening. A split second later, the pup struck the hard wood and rebounded with an indignant yip.

 _Good. He's all right._ Danny went to turn his full attention back to his third opponent; just an instant too late, he registered the presence of a _fourth_ man in the room, behind him. An arm rose and fell; the weight of the world smashed into the back of his head. The last thing he heard before the lights went out was the sound of Chewie yapping frantically.

* * *

Consciousness returned as a series of apparently unconnected impressions.

 _Wrists, compressed, tied. Plastic ties. With time I can work my way out of these._

 _Headache. Maybe a mild concussion, nothing serious. Not nauseous._

 _Sitting upright._

 _Hands in front of me, not behind._

 _Smells of my house. My living room. Blood; the men I killed. Hasn't been long._

 _Blind. No, cloth tied around head. Blindfolded._

"I think he's awake."

The cloth was pulled away and Danny looked at a semi-circle of hostile faces. He'd been here before, more than once. The fact that he was unarmed and restrained was a mere detail. _Besides, not all weapons can be seen._

"Can I help you?" he asked mildly.

The question seemed to take them aback. In fact, his entire attitude of less than fearful cringing seemed to have them puzzled.

"Fuck yes, you can help us," snarled a familiar-looking punk. He had bandages on both arms and his head; two of his fingers were splinted. Road rash showed from under some of the bandages. "You can die screaming, that's what you can do."

"Wait, I know you," Danny replied. "Aren't you the guy who tried to carjack me?"

"Yeah, an' I'm gonna be doing more than that now," the punk spat. "You fucking dragged me behind your car, you cocksucker."

Danny had tuned him out; his mind had tossed up a query. _Where's Chewie?_ Looking around as if casually, he saw the pup in the hands of one of the men. He seemed to be healthy enough, for which Danny was grateful.

"Are you listening to me, you old fart?" The skinhead was shouting now, flecks of foam on his lips. "I'm gonna fuck you up so bad your _grandkids_ will feel it."

Danny looked him in the eye. "Not on your best day." _I have to play this just right._

"I'll fucking show you -" The punk moved forward; Danny tensed, but relaxed again as the punk was restrained by a hand on his arm.

An older man, in his mid twenties, wearing the colours of the racist gang, moved forward to stand in front of Danny. He was the one holding Chewie; as Danny watched, he scratched the pup behind one ear. "You messed up Billy and Steve pretty good," he observed. "And J-dog here came off second best, even when he started out with a gun in your face. I'm guessing special forces training, or something of the sort."

"Something of the sort, yeah." Danny wasn't about to give anything away, but a polite request deserved a polite answer.

This got him a brief smile. "Thought so. Well, J-dog wants a piece of you, and it _was_ kinda impolite for you to drag him behind your car like that. How else is he supposed to learn how to carjack people?"

One corner of Danny's mouth curled up. "Tell J-dog that we can go right here, right now. You don't even need to untie me."

The Empire man snorted. "Yeah, that's gonna happen. Billy's dead and Steve isn't looking too good either. We don't need to lose anyone else tonight."

"So what, you just gonna kill me?" Danny watched the man's eyes. If they showed a change in focus, he was prepared to move.

"Thinking about it," mused the man. "I think you're too dangerous just to let live."

"Yeah well, it's not like J-dog could handle me," Danny sneered. "No matter _how_ many buddies he had along." _Come to my feet, headbutt him, catch Chewie, out the window …_

The man stopped just short of the optimum point for Danny to carry out his plan. "Hm. J-dog, what do you think? He's tied up, and I'll leave you four men. Think you can make an example of him for me?"

"Fuck yes," blustered J-dog. "I won't even need them. I -" Belatedly, he caught the glare sent to him by the man. "Uh, yeah, sure. Four men sounds good."

"Excellent." The man smiled slowly, then turned back to Danny. "Oh, and by the way, you won't need to worry about your little dog here."

"Oh?" _Show no concern, show no concern._

"The way you threw the chair shows that you're attached to the little furball," the man mused. "So I wondered how you would like it if I snapped his neck in front of you." His fingers dug into Chewie's fur; the pup whimpered as the pressure increased.

" - don't!" The word was jerked out of Danny's mouth. "Please, don't."

"Ahh." The smile widened. "We see your true colours, your true weakness. So let me tell you what's going to happen to little uh," he checked the collar tag, "Chewie here. I'm going to take him home. I'm going to feed him well. And then, tonight or tomorrow night or maybe, possibly, the night after, I'm going to take him to the dog fights."

Danny blinked. "But he's not -"

"Big enough to fight?" The smile turned vicious. "No, he's not. But he's big enough to blood the newcomers."

Danny felt sick. Blooding newcomers to the fight circuit was usually done with stray cats or rabbits. Anything small, that couldn't fight back. The dogs would tear Chewie apart, getting the taste for blood, making them more savage. _No way can I let that happen._

"So yeah, while they're working on you, I want you to think about that." The man locked eyes with Danny. "Because J-dog's a fucking moron, yes, but he's _our_ fucking moron. And you fucked with him. Which means you fucked with us. And _nobody_ fucks with the Empire and gets away with it."

"But he's just a puppy," Danny argued. "Why hurt _him?_ He never hurt you."

"Because hurting him hurts you." The man turned away. "I wonder if he'll even see it coming?"

Danny came off the sofa, hands reaching, but the men on either side of him had been ready for just such a move. Two grabbed his arms while the third swung a powerful fist into his solar plexus. He grunted and doubled over as the blow knocked all the wind out of him. His arms were released; he fell to the floor, taking the impact on his elbows before rolling over. A boot crashed into his ribs; he rolled away, fighting for breath. J-dog came in, vicious glee on his face. He drew his foot back, then lashed out; Danny caught the ankle and twisted. J-dog yelped in utter consternation as he lost his balance and crashed to the floor.

Danny tried to launch himself on top of the fallen Empire punk – maybe he had a blade on him somewhere – but once more, strong hands seized his arms and held him back. They lifted him to his feet, while J-dog climbed unsteadily to his.

While he caught his breath, Danny looked around. The man who had taunted him had left with Chewie; five men remained behind, including the redoubtable J-dog. _I have to kill these idiots fast._

Reaching into his back pocket, J-dog pulled out a switchblade. _I would have checked there,_ Danny told himself. "Okay then," he purred, attempting a menacing tone. "Let's see how you like it, wise guy."

"Not up here," one of the men holding Danny stated. "We've made enough noise as it is. He's got a basement. That'll be a lot quieter. Plus, he's got a workbench."

"So what?" snarled J-dog, weaving the blade around.

"So it's got a vice on it. You ever wanted to put someone's balls in a vice for real?"

"Ooooh." J-dog's eyes widened. "Okay, basement it is."

"All right, smart guy," the man behind Danny told him. "Basement. Now." Danny felt something hard and metallic prodding him in the small of the back; it felt like a pistol barrel.

 _I'd like one of those, too,_ Danny thought wistfully. He had cleaned the pistol he had taken from J-dog, and it was now residing in his nightstand, doing him exactly no good at all.

* * *

Together, they moved toward the cellar door; someone had moved the chair from where he had thrown it. "Serious soundproofing here too," the man who had mentioned the vice went on. "What's that all about?"

Danny didn't answer, at least not immediately. J-dog was at the bottom of the steps, with another man just a few steps up. There was one man immediately in front of Danny, another behind, and the last man was just closing the cellar door. The aged incandescent bulb almost directly over Danny's head provided the only illumination in the cellar.

"Gotta ask you guys a question," he said casually, stopping on the steps.

"What's that?" J-dog snarled.

He paused a beat. "Are you afraid of the Dark?"

"The fuck that supposed to mean?" J-dog retorted, but two of the other gang members were looking around.

"Whaddaya mean by that?" asked one.

"You mean dark, or, you know, Dark?" asked the other.

For an answer, Danny reached up; the cord for the light switch was right where he had paused. Giving it a tremendous yank, he plunged the cellar into darkness; a snap, along with the cord falling limply across his face, told him that he had broken the cord itself. He shoved the man in front of him, then grabbed the stair rail and vaulted over it to the floor below.

* * *

 _The name was Annette's idea. I wanted to use an acronym, so that people didn't know if we were two people or ten, but I was stuck between DAH, being Danny & Annette Hebert, and DAR; Danny & Anne-Rose. She watched me pace back and forth for a good ten minutes – I wanted an acronym, sure, but I didn't love either one of those – before picking up a pen and writing on her own pad. Spinning the pad around, she shoved it across to me._

 _DANNY & ANNE-ROSE, KILLERS FOR HIRE, I read._

" _Yeah, so?" I asked._

 _Smiling, she underlined the first letters of the first four words, then wrote it out underneath._

 _DARK FOR HIRE._

 _I'm not sure which one of us first began using the phrase about being afraid of the Dark, but it certainly stuck. Before long,_ _ **everyone**_ _had heard of it. We were officially 'the Dark'._

 _I had to admit, it was kind of cool._

 _ **from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert**_

* * *

Not having any visual cues, he had to guess at how far he was falling. He didn't quite get it right and fell sideways, feeling as though his ankles were broken. But the tumbling, yelling man on the stairs covered up any noise he might have made.

Muzzle-flares lit the cellar as shots racketed to and fro in the confined space. The first casualty was the man Danny had pushed down the steps; he had made enough noise with the bumping and yelling that attention gravitated his way, as did a few bullets. Pained shouts died away in a gurgling moan.

Thumps on the steps indicated that the men who had been behind Danny were coming down to join the others. Light or dark, he knew the cellar like the back of his hand, but that wasn't going to be much use if and when they produced light and then shot him down like a dog. So he moved fast.

Under the steps, there was a large cardboard box full of gardening paraphernalia; amid said paraphernalia was a pair of shears with rather sharp points. His questing hands found the box and the shears very rapidly indeed; closing his hands around the handles, he stood up beneath the stairs, just as the thumping noises went from over his head to in front of his face. Dust drifted down upon him; he didn't care.

Opening the shears slightly, he jabbed viciously through the gap between one riser and the next. One point struck something and sank deep, eliciting a scream from above; the shears were nearly dragged from his hands as the man plunged forward, tumbling down the steps in his turn. Nobody fired this time; he was obscurely disappointed.

"He's under the stairs!" someone yelled.

 _And that's my cue to move. Or wait …_

Reaching into the box, he palmed a trowel then tossed it underhand toward the far wall. It made a nice clattering sound; several more shots were fired in that direction. In the glare of the muzzle-flares, Danny got a quick impression of where everybody was. _Right then …_

Lunging from under the steps, he lashed out with the shears; the improvised weapon struck someone, dragging an agonised yell from them. Danny stabbed again and again; the third stab, aiming at head height, hit bone before pulling free. He heard the boneless thud as the man went down … and more importantly, the clatter of metal on concrete.

The others were moving in, but this was his chance. He threw the shears aside and dived for where the gun had fallen. His fingers fell short; he scrabbled for it. _I know it's here somewhere._

Light flared; one of the men held up a Zippo. Danny saw the pistol, inches from his hand. He grabbed it, rolled on to his back, looking up at the startled men. They tried to bring their guns around but he was faster.

He shot the man with the lighter last.

* * *

Danny trudged up out of the cellar, dragging J-dog by one arm. He'd shot the punk in the shoulder, then knocked him cold so that he could make sure of the others. That he'd done; nobody was left alive in the cellar once he and J-dog were gone.

Upstairs, he slapped the punk awake. J-dog stared at him blankly. "How the fuck -" he blurted.

Danny smashed the pistol across his face; blood started from the punk's lips. "I want answers. Now."

"Wha – wha – what?"

"Dog fights. Where?"

"Wha – wha - wha – _dog_ fights?"

"Yes." Danny gritted his teeth. "Dog. Fights. Where. Are. They. Held."

J-dog eyed the pistol in Danny's hand. "I tell you, you don't shoot me."

"I won't shoot you."

"Or stab me?"

Danny rolled his eyes. "I won't shoot you _or_ stab you. Now give."

The punk rattled off an address. "There. See? Can I go?"

"Nope." Danny locked his arms around the guy's neck, twisted.

"Urk -" J-dog had hardly any air left by the time he realised what was happening. "You said -"

"Said I wouldn't shoot you or stab you." Danny gave one last wrenching twist; the punk's neck snapped like dry kindling. "Never said anything about not killing you."

He let the punk's limp body fall to the floor and straightened up, feeling his own vertebrae click back into place. _Getting old for this._

But he had one more thing to do. Going to the phone, he picked it up and dialled a number from memory. The voice that answered the call was male, and sounded as world-weary as Danny felt.

" _Kwiksmart Pizza Delivery, Jimmy speaking."_

Danny cleared his throat. "I'd like to place an order for Dark."

There was a long pause. _"Sir, could you please repeat that name?"_

"I said, I'd like to place an order for _Dark."_

" _What? Holy shit."_ All the boredom fell away from the voice. _"Is that really you?"_

"September 'ninety-nine. Worth Street. Three guys."

" _Shit, it_ _ **is**_ _you. Everyone's been saying you've dropped out of sight. Maybe died, or left town. Nobody's heard from you in the last two, three years."_

Danny grimaced, reminded of the reason. _Two years, four months._ "I'm still around. I've just been … retired."

" _So what, are you back in the game? Or is this just a courtesy call?"_

"No. I've got some business for you."

" _So you're back then?"_

" … temporarily. Maybe."

" _Right. Okay, what's the job?"_

"Pizza for five, extra topping. Going to need some garlic bread, too."

" _Just like old times. Address, please?"_

Danny gave the address. "Surprise party for a friend. You've got maybe an hour."

" _Heh, same old same old. Yep, just like old times all right. Sure, we can do it. Kwiksmart is on the job."_

"Good. Come in the back way. Key's under a fake rock. Payment's in the letterbox."

" _Fake rock, got it. We're on our way."_

"Good." He hung up.

* * *

Normally, at this point, he would have made more elaborate preparations, but time was short and getting shorter for a particular puppy. It was _also_ getting quite short for the man who had taken Chewie, but he wasn't to know that. He would learn soon enough, however.

Under a loose floorboard in his bedroom, he located a locked box. He hadn't opened it in more than a year, but the combination was fresh in his mind. _Our wedding anniversary._

Within the box were several small flat gold bars. He took one out, locking the box and replacing it once more. Gold was hard to change into legitimate currency in a hurry, but when dealing with not so legitimate businesses, it worked well enough.

An old backpack served to collect the guns that the men had brought with them. Letting himself out of the house, he slipped the gold bar into the mailbox. Then he got in the car and started it up.

It was time to go and see a man about a dog.

* * *

End of Part One


	2. Chapter 2

**Are You Afraid of the Dark?**

* * *

Part Two: Seeing a Man About a Dog

* * *

 _[A/N: This chapter commissioned by GW_Yoda and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]_

* * *

 **Danny**

* * *

 _Professional killers have certain traits in common with spies._

 _Both inhabit the shadows, their presence only revealed by the fallout of what they've done. The good ones go unnoticed until the job is done and dusted; the_ _ **very**_ _good ones aren't even identified after the fact. Both require anonymity as a first principle for the job; to be known is to draw extremely unwelcome attention not only from the target, but also from those who might_ _ **think**_ _they're the next target._

 _And, of course, they rarely retire. Oh, they may cease to take paying work, but it's a fact that the best killers and spies only get that good due to a certain natural affinity for the work. So the really good ones never stop looking, gauging, analysing. They're always preparing, however subconsciously, for the next mission. If they're lucky, they get to pull that one last job._

 _If they're_ _ **really**_ _lucky, they might even survive it._

 _ **\- from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert**_

* * *

The worn backpack sat on the passenger seat beside Danny along with a grungy jacket salvaged from one of the gang punks, the former gently clanking each time he took a corner. He drove with absolute concentration, making an effort to not clench his hands on the wheel; over-exerting his finger muscles at this point would lead to uncontrollable cramping and twitching when he least needed it, later on. In his mind, he was preparing for the fight to come.

This time, he wouldn't be up against a bunch of overconfident and under-prepared no-hopers. While the men at the dog-fight would be woefully inadequate to face him on a one-on-one basis, they would be more numerous and more amped up on adrenaline than the ones at the house. He wasn't quite sure who'd come up with the maxim 'Quantity has a quality all of its own', but it was extremely apt in this situation. The turnout at one of those dog-fights was likely to be upward of fifty or sixty men, which was more than he'd ever taken on at one time before, even with Annette at his side.

Despite knowing that, and knowing he was out of practice, not once did he consider abandoning the rescue mission. Chewie was far too important to Taylor for Danny to let him be slaughtered by a bunch of racist assholes for their own amusement. Which didn't mean that he intended to charge in blindly. Tactics and planning, properly utilised, were potent force multipliers. So was the element of surprise. He intended to make full use of all three.

* * *

 _When you're setting up for a kill, you've got all the time in the world. You're going to need it; you have to study your target, figure out his routine, his weaknesses and his strengths. You need to wait until you're comfortable with the hit, until you've figured out how you're going to get close, how you're going to do the deed, and how you're going to exfil afterward. Then you work out another plan, and a third one, then a fourth. You figure out what you're going to do when the plan goes wrong, as it inevitably will. All this takes time._

 _The inverse applies when you're going for a rescue mission. I haven't done very many of those, but they came up once in a long while. The life expectancy of the victim of a gangland kidnapping is usually a few hours to a few days, so we had to act fast to get them back before anything happened to them. And of course, we usually had to kill quite a few people to get the job done. Including—and I always made a point of this—the person who ordered the kidnapping in the first place._

 _It was my way of ensuring they didn't ever do it again._

 _ **\- from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert**_

* * *

The warehouse where the fight was due to happen wasn't hard to find. He parked the car next to a straggling row of dented pickups, one with an entire series of spotlights on the roll-bar across the top of the cab. _Rednecks in New England. Now I've seen it all._ Climbing out of the car, he pulled the jacket on and rummaged in the backpack for the pistols he'd salvaged from the five gang punks. Not one of them was fully loaded, so he took out the magazines and stuck them in his left pants pocket. Three of the pistols had rounds chambered, and it only took a moment to remove them and replace them in the magazines. Fortunately, all the pistols were chambered for nine-millimetre rounds, which wasn't a total surprise; it was one of the most popular calibres in the world, after all. The now-empty weapons went back into the pack, now slung one over one shoulder. He started moving briskly toward the warehouse.

As he walked, he tested the tension in the springs then started to swap ammunition between the magazines, thumbing the cool copper-and-lead projectiles out of the emptiest ones and pushing them into one of the more fully loaded ones. The familiar repetitive action was almost soothing, helping to get his head back in the game.

People were still filing in through the main doors, which gave him hope that Chewie was still alive. But it was getting close to the hour, so he didn't have much time to play around with. Swapping the bullets over had filled one magazine and nearly filled a second one, so he stuffed the now-empty magazines into the pack along with the pistols that went with them. Loading two of the pistols, he chambered rounds, applied the safeties, and put them back in the pack as well. As an afterthought, he took a switchblade he'd salvaged from the earlier fight out of his back pocket and slid it into his sleeve.

The jacket had enough Empire-related patches that nobody looked twice at him, but it would still take too long for him to get where he needed to be without being noticed. With this in mind, he detoured away from the converging crowd, around to the back of the building. As he'd expected (having a certain amount of familiarity with this sort of facility) there was a loading dock mostly filled with random trash. Beside the rust-laden roller-door was a doorway of more normal proportions. Near the door, an equally dilapidated fire extinguisher hung on a bracket, no doubt a relic of safety regulations dating from more prosperous days.

However, of more interest to him were the two guards in front of the door, both eyeing him with a certain amount of disfavour. The one on the left stood about six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a broader gut. His thick beard spilled down on to his chest over a faded black T-shirt that displayed a raised fist with a swastika on the back, and the slogan "White Power" beneath. At least, Danny figured that was what it said, given that all but "ITE POW" was obscured by the leather vest the Empire thug was wearing. The patches on the vest were more or less the same as the ones on Danny's 'borrowed' jacket, while tattoos of a similar nature decorated the Empire thug's thick forearms.

The guard on the right was about six inches shorter and fifty to a hundred pounds lighter than his buddy. He also wore a jacket proclaiming his lack of moral standards, and had a heavily acne-scarred face with greasy dark hair falling over it, along with a receding chin. With his beady, suspicious gaze and straggly moustache, he rather resembled a rat peering over a hairbrush.

Danny was briefly reminded of a quote—he wasn't sure where from—that asked 'Why is it the greatest champions of the white race always turn out to be the worst examples of it?'. While both men were technically armed—with pistols pushed into the front of their pants, a move he wouldn't advise to anyone who was set on raising a family—he saw the two-way radios clipped to their belts to be a greater threat than the weapons ever would be. If he was going to pull this off, he had to make his entry quick and quiet. At a pinch, he'd settle for one out of two.

"Wrong way, asshole," grunted the bulky guard, scratching his neck under his beard. "This ain't the way in." His rat-faced partner nodded in agreement. Fortunately, as far as Danny could see, neither one of them considered him to be more than a mild annoyance. He ignored the warning and took a couple of steps closer, flexing his wrist slightly.

"Got a question," he said bluntly. "Either of you guys afraid of the Dark?" As he spoke, he let the switchblade drop into his hand.

The rat-faced guard was a little quicker on the uptake than his partner. His eyes opened wide and his face paled dramatically as he stepped back, hands held up defensively in front of him. "Oh, shit," he muttered. "Oh, shit. Chuck, it's the _Dark."_

"The fuck you on about?" Chuck almost literally puffed himself up. "This ain't the Dark. He's just some skinny fuck." Pulling the radio from his belt while reaching for the gun with his other hand, he thumbed the button. "Hey, we—"

* * *

 _When you're using a short knife, like a switchblade, the temptation is to stab with it. This isn't the best idea in the world. Barring certain areas where vulnerable points are very close to the surface, a stab will be painful but won't do a whole lot to your opponent. Slashing is more difficult, but opening up a vein or artery can easily be a fight-ender. Likewise, taking out tendons and ligaments will seriously hamper your opponent and give you an edge. The straight razor is the epitome of this principle; most see it as almost an archaic weapon but in the right hands, it can be terrifying._

 _Of course, this isn't to say that stabbing is_ _ **always**_ _a bad idea. At the right time and place, it can be exactly what you need to do._

 _ **\- from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert**_

* * *

Danny flicked the switchblade open and threw it underhanded, sending it flashing in a bright line that terminated in the man's right eye. Even as the guy dropped the radio and let out a high-pitched scream, Danny reached out and yanked the fire extinguisher from its place on the wall. Ramming it forward, he slammed its base into the switchblade, driving the knife deep into the thug's brain.

"Oh, shit, oh, shit!" yelped the rat-faced guy, trying to edge backward. Danny turned and took one long stride toward him, then swung the extinguisher. With a hollow clang, it bounced off the guy's skull. His eyes rolled back in his head as his knees buckled and he slumped to the grimy concrete, out cold. Dropping the extinguisher on the chest of the deceased Chuck, Danny leaned down and plucked the gun from his belt. The other one hadn't done anything to deserve death quite yet, so Danny decided to let him live and just took his gun instead.

Turning to the door, Danny pushed down on the handle with his elbow. It utterly failed to open, which didn't surprise him; locking the door was only a logical precaution. It would've made his life a little easier for them to have overlooked that one, but he couldn't have everything. It looked as though he was going to have to go with 'quick and noisy' for his entry, which meant he'd have to do a little preparation. Setting the safety catches on the pistols he'd just souvenired, he grimaced and shoved them into his waistband in the small of his back, where they'd be concealed by his jacket. His hands now free, he took the loaded guns from the pack, dumped the empties along with their magazines on the loading dock, and slung the now-empty pack properly on his back.

While storing a gun in the waistband was convenient and could be done ninety-nine times out of a hundred without mishap, there was always the hundredth time. Danny had never liked it; there was always the chance of a safety disengaging and the gun going off. Shoved down the front of the pants, the gun muzzle was guided with almost laser-like accuracy toward certain parts of the anatomy that every man held near and dear. Down the back, there were the leg muscles and the large arteries in the thigh to worry about. Just as importantly, the waistband depended on friction and luck to have the gun still there when it was needed. He much preferred a well-made holster. The trouble was, he didn't always get what he wanted.

The pistol in his left hand was a Beretta 92-S, fully loaded; in his right, a Sig-Sauer P-220 with eight rounds. That meant he had twenty-three bullets to play with, in hand. The guns he had stashed in his waistband had felt like they were close to fully loaded, so he figured on another twenty or so rounds there. Once he was getting close to running out, he knew he'd have to take weapons off of someone else. It was an ad hoc arrangement and one he wasn't overly happy with, but he'd long since gotten used to dealing with uncomfortable choices.

Prep was done, and the noise from within the building was starting to build. Time, he knew, was getting short. Stepping back a little from the door, he straight-armed the Sig at it, flicked the safeties off of both weapons at once, then fired a shot at the lock. The muzzle flare would've blinded him if he hadn't squinted, and the report echoed loudly in the empty loading dock, but the lock was blown away and the door sagged open. He hit it hard with his shoulder an instant later, arms already crossing over his body.

* * *

 _When you're going through a door into an uncleared area and you've got two guns, cross your arms over so your right gun is shooting left, and your left gun is shooting right. The most effective place to wait in ambush is right beside the door, which is a hard place to target with a pistol on that side; the human elbow and wrist aren't designed to bend in that direction. If you can't put a couple of rounds through the wall before you hit the doorway, make sure you can shoot sideways as you go through the door. It's a little tricky to put your bullets exactly where you want them, but enough practice can fix that too._

 _Annette taught me that one. It's saved my life more often than I can count._

 _ **\- from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert**_

* * *

His instincts were correct; there'd been a guard to either side of the door. The one on the left was out of luck, because he had a door in his face. For that matter, the one on the right was even more out of luck, because he was facing Danny's Beretta. Behind that guy, there was a set of stairs going up to some sort of platform, and someone was coming down them. He put three shots through the door with the Sig, then saw both men reaching for their weapons. Stepping closer to the guard at the foot of the stairs, he jammed the Beretta into the guy's chest and double-tapped off two shots. A shudder went through the guy as the first round punched through his heart and kept on going to bury itself in a wooden support. For the second shot, Danny angled the gun upward; this one ranged up through the guard's body, crossed the intervening space in a fraction of a second, and took out the guy on the stairs.

As they both started to go down, Danny half-turned just in time for the left-hand guard to push the door closed again. The action was probably reflexive, because the guy just kept leaning forward, the pistol falling from nerveless fingers to clatter on the ground. He joined it a moment later.

 _This just got real loud._ With that in mind, Danny turned toward the rest of the warehouse. He couldn't see the dog-fighting arena, blocked as it was from his sight by a row of makeshift bookies' desks where people had been laying bets up until the shooting had broken out. Three more guys, with the air of enforcers, were even now moving toward him. This was good, as it saved him from having to go after them, as time was not his friend at the moment. On the downside, he couldn't see the guy he was after, which meant he had to get a better view of the venue.

The set of stairs to his right seemed tailor-made for the purpose; they went up about twenty feet to some sort of platform. And in fact—Danny's eyes widened slightly in recognition—the guy up there was the one he was looking for. Which would've been more useful if the guy hadn't seen him at the same time. He could just see Chewie's head sticking up over the guy's shoulder, so he couldn't risk a body shot. Raising the Sig, he snapped off a shot to make the guy keep his head down. With that breathing space, he opened fire on the incoming enforcers; left, right, left, the guns bucking in his hands. Their heads snapped back, blood spraying bright in the actinic glare of the floodlights. As the last one fell, he turned and went up the steps, taking them two at a time.

Both his guns were raised and ready to shoot in case the asshole showed himself, but he got to the top without being shot at; in fact, by the time he got there, the only one facing him was a chubby little guy with glasses. He didn't look dangerous but Danny knew not to take that as a metric, so he elbow-charged the guy in the chest, sending him back over the rail with a shriek. Turning, he scanned the crowd, looking for his quarry.

A moment later, he spotted the guy. Irritatingly enough, he'd apparently made the jump down from the platform without hurting himself and was now pushing his way through the crowd with the puppy visible in the crook of his left elbow. Danny had a clear shot, but if he took it, he risked Chewie being trodden to death if the puppy was dropped into the milling crowd, so he didn't fire. But he could make the guy's life difficult in other ways. Looking down at the control panel, he saw what he needed and tucked the Sig under his arm.

Knowing he had to be quick, he closed his eyes and tucked his face into the crook of his right arm. The microphone was easy to find, and he flipped the switch. "Your attention please," he said, his voice echoing throughout the building. "Is anyone here afraid of the Dark?" Without waiting for a response, he skated his hand sideways and flipped the switch beside the microphone; the one that said LIGHTS. He didn't see the lights go off, but the radiant heat from the floods cut out immediately. Due to his preparations, when he dropped his arm from his face and opened his eyes, he was the only sighted man in the land of the blind.

All that was left was the glow from the tired fluorescents hanging from the rafters, which had been on all the time and had probably been installed when the building was constructed. He could see clearly by this light; not so the crowd. Between his announcement (which maybe half to two-thirds of the people in the warehouse were taking seriously) and the sudden darkness, the crowd was on the verge of panic. _Just the way I like it._

Danny had already marked the position of the guy who had Chewie, and since he'd had enough of jumping off high things on to hard surfaces, he took the Sig in his hand and headed for the way down. There were two enforcers in single file at the bottom of the stairs, the first one just starting up the steps. Each had a gun in hand. They stared up at him, eyes obviously still adjusting to the dark, and tried to bring their guns into line, but he fired a single shot from the Sig before they were halfway there. It went through the throat of the enforcer in front and punched into the chest of the guy behind him, dropping them both to the ground before they were even aware they'd been hit. At the same time, the Sig's slide locked back, confirming that the gun was empty.

Tossing the empty weapon aside, he pulled one of the guns from his waistband and jogged down the stairs. As he stepped over the pile of bodies at the bottom, he was just reflecting to himself that he was getting too old to pull this sort of shit on a regular basis when one of the bodies moved. By sheer instinct, he fired three shots into the pile; there was no more movement. Then he looked around to orient himself and headed toward where he'd last seen Chewie's abductor.

The bookies' desks were hardly an obstacle, and the bookies themselves cowered back when he kicked one of the desks over to get past. He was splattered here and there with blood—shooting someone at close range makes it hard to avoid that—and was carrying two guns, so it was hardly surprising that they didn't want to get in his way. Or maybe they were just that afraid of the Dark.

 _Good._

Guns in hand, he stalked into the crowd. It parted for him, not unlike the Red Sea before Moses; if, that is, the Red Sea was made up of panicking humanity. An enforcer came out of the crowd to his left, already firing wildly. Danny ducked aside as people went down screaming, then knocked the gun aside and kicked the man's legs from under him. He fired a single shot into the downed man and kept going without pausing.

Up ahead, he heard Chewie's frantic yapping, and he quickened his pace. More enforcers closed on him from all sides, or perhaps they were just regular Empire thugs who'd decided the Dark wasn't as scary as Kaiser. _Their mistake._ He fired to the left and right, parried a knife-slash, then elbowed one man in the jaw as he shot another in the face. A gunbarrel angled in his direction, but he shot the man in the groin then the head in quick succession.

Someone kicked the Beretta from his hand; it fell to the floor and skittered away. He twisted away from a follow-up blow, then intercepted an incoming slash from a Ka-Bar, the man's wrist slapping into his palm. Dropping to the floor, he fired half a dozen shots into the thugs crowding around him as he stabbed the Ka-Bar guy with his own knife. Bodies slumped to the floor, including the surprised-looking thug whose knife he appropriated, seeing as the guy didn't need it any more. As he came to his feet, he wondered at the sudden outbreak of screaming. They hadn't been screaming en masse up until now: _what's changed?_

What had changed, he realised in short order, was that a new player was on the scene. A stocky girl on a rhino-sized dog was charging through the crowd, tossing people to left and right. It was the member of the Undersiders called Hellhound; as Danny understood things, she made dogs grow to monstrous sizes then told them what to do. It occurred to him, from what he knew about her, that she may not be a fan of dog-fighting.

* * *

 _While Annette and I made a rule of never going after capes, it only made sense to find out all we could about them. After all, even if we never went after them, there was nothing to say that they wouldn't come after us at some point. So we took in all the public-consumption information we could find, then dug deeper. Not that we ever intended to use it against them unless they brought the fight to us, but forewarned_ _ **is**_ _forearmed._

 _By the time Annette passed, we were quite well-informed about all the capes in Brockton Bay, including some points of data which would have shocked the public if they knew. I kept up the information-gathering afterward, more from habit than necessity. While I wasn't_ _ **quite**_ _as well-informed as we had been before—cutting ties with my old life also meant casting away access to illegal sources of information—I still knew more than most about the capes of Brockton Bay, who they were and who they associated with._

 _And, of course, how to take them down if I had to._

 _ **\- from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert**_

* * *

Any distraction for the opposition was a good distraction, but Danny had other fish to fry. The crowd had thinned somewhat—virtually everyone who'd been willing to face him was dead or dying—and the asshole he was chasing was just up ahead, alongside the dog-fighting cage.

The cage was a circular affair roughly ten feet across. It was made up of a wooden frame about two feet high with chicken-wire extending another four feet, so the audience could see every detail of what happened, while the loser in the dog-fight couldn't easily escape its fate. The framework was broken in two places by gates to allow dogs to enter for the fights. Another, larger, gate was obviously there for people to enter and drag out the corpse of the loser. This gate was on the far side of the arena to where Danny stood.

Within the cage, there had obviously been a teaser fight going on, between two somewhat mismatched dogs. While Danny was taking down the opposition, the larger dog had dispatched its scrawnier opponent and was now looking around in evident confusion at the running and screaming. But Danny had no eyes for that; his gaze was locked on the man with Chewie, whose own gaze was flicking back and forth between him and Hellhound.

"Fuck you!" the man yelled, obviously deciding Danny was the greater threat. He raised the pistol he held; just as he snapped off a shot at Danny, Chewie growled and sank his sharp little puppy teeth into the man's thumb. Danny would never be sure if this caused him to miss, but the shot went wide anyway. The real problem was that the guy reacted to the bite by flinging his arm out to the side. Chewie hung on for a split second then let go, performing a parabolic arc through the air. Predictably, because things obviously couldn't get any _better_ , he went over the mesh and into the cage. Where he landed was both good and bad news.

Had Chewie landed on the bare concrete floor of the fighting arena, there was a strong chance he would've been injured by the fall. Fortunately, what he landed on was soft. _Un_ fortunately, the soft thing he landed on was the back of the victorious dog.

With a startled yelp, Chewie rolled off the back of the dog on to the ground. When he hit the concrete, he kept rolling, which saved his life; teeth snapped together just inches away from his body. Too young to really have an opinion in the matter, the little puppy nonetheless acted correctly; scrambling to his feet, he tucked his tail between his feet and fled, yelping frantically. Hampered by the few injuries he'd received in the fight, the bigger dog turned in pursuit.

Once Chewie was out of the sight picture, Danny double-tapped the guy twice in the chest, then finished him off with one in the head. The guy hadn't even finished crumpling to the ground by the time Danny was at the cage. "Chewie!" he called. "Chewie! Come on, boy!" Spying one of the wooden slide-gates into the cage, he kicked at it viciously, shattering it inward. It measured about two feet square, large enough for a dog to enter, but problematic for someone even as skinny as him. "Here, boy! Come on!" Up came the pistol, aiming at the bigger dog. While he didn't like killing animals as a rule, he'd certainly do it to protect Chewie. Unfortunately, all he got out of it was a dry click.

Discarding the pistol, he reached back under his jacket for the last one he'd stashed there … but it wasn't there any more. At some point during the melee, possibly when he'd gone down on to the floor, he and the pistol had parted ways. Which was just one more black mark in the record against shoving them into the waistband, but he didn't dwell on that. Chewie had heard him and was gamely galloping in his direction, but the other dog was gaining with every stride. It would catch Chewie before the puppy got to the gate, and then it would be all over.

Reaching up, he yanked down at the chicken-wire, trying to give himself enough room to throw the knife at the pursuing dog. While he had both arms atop it, struggling to get enough slack—someone had been thoughtful enough to run wire through the top of the mesh, preventing it from sagging, or being made to sag—he heard a piercing whistle, and a command: "Fetch!"

Before he could make sense of it, one of the rhino-sized dogs burst clear _through_ the chicken-wire on the far side of the arena, twanging the retaining wire like a guitar string very briefly before snapping it altogether. The sudden tension flung Danny away from the cage to land on his back, just in time to see the lizard-dinosaur monster tear out through the near side of the arena with the bigger dog struggling in its jaws. Enormous claws ripped chunks from the blood-stained concrete as it turned back toward its mistress, revealing the fact that Chewie was wrapped up in its _tail._

He kept enough presence of mind to roll to his feet; on the way, he collected someone's discarded pistol. Upright again, he checked chamber—there was a round ready to go, and the pistol felt heavy enough to have more than a few in the magazine—then started toward where Hellhound and her dogs were harassing the remnants of the crowd. After a moment's thought, he paused to shed the empty pack, preparatory to removing the jacket. The lizard-rhino dogs had proven to be bulletproof in the past, and he didn't feel like being mauled for wearing Empire colours, when all he wanted to do was take Chewie home. Once he had the jacket off and stuffed in the backpack, it would supply ample padding to keep Chewie comfortable on the ride back to the house. And if the little dog felt like peeing on it, Danny was good with that too. He'd even stop by a fast-food place, to treat Chewie to more bacon.

The universe chose that point in time to express its amusement at his daring to make plans past the moment. Just as he began to pull one arm from the jacket sleeve, he heard the familiar roar of a motorcycle engine being revved to the max. More than once in the past, he'd been the one doing the revving. He wasn't surprised to hear it; what better way to escape from an attack by Hellhound than by motorcycle, after all? What was unusual in this specific instance was that the noise was coming closer. A lot closer.

Danny turned to look at the main entrance, a moment before the people struggling to crowd their way out were flung aside by the mass of a speeding motorbike. The rider, clad in loose clothing and wearing a metal cage around her head in lieu of a helmet, came off over the handlebars as the front wheel struck an obstacle it couldn't go over—in this particular case, a person. However, her dismount was anything but uncontrolled, as she proved in short order. Touching down, she rolled to her feet and kept moving at a dead run, drawing a pair of _kama_ from her belt as she made a beeline toward Hellhound.

The fact that people had been hurt by her precipitate entrance didn't seem to bother the woman; nor did Danny think she'd be worried about it later. By all appearances, this was Cricket, one of the Empire's leg-breakers. She wasn't a big-name hitter like Purity or Hookwolf but she was fast and, by all accounts, almost prescient in a fight. Danny had his theories about how that worked, and how she managed to keep her opponents off-guard. If he was right, he'd need a little preparation before he could face her on terms he preferred.

Hellhound wasn't oblivious to the danger; as he picked up the Ka-Bar knife and started slicing a strip of cloth from his shirt, she whistled and pointed. Two of the monstrous creatures—neither one being the dog that had Chewie—began loping toward the newcomer. Misshapen jaws opened to unleash unearthly howls, and drool hung in ropes from their jaws.

Danny had the strip almost torn away when they met the woman head-on, or tried to. As one snapped at her, she pirouetted away, then wedged a _kama_ into its grapefruit-sized eye and dove on to its back. The stricken monster howled and turned its head to snap at the elusive prey, but she ducked away again, ripping chunks from its bone-encrusted neck with her second _kama._ Planting her feet under her, she launched herself into the air from the dog's back, leaving them behind her. Now there was nothing left between her and Hellhound.

For just a moment, Danny was tempted to let the fight play out. The only beef he had with the Empire—apart from them being racist assholes—was that they had Chewie. If Cricket beat the snot out of Hellhound, Chewie wouldn't come into it at all. He could wait till the dust settled, take Taylor's pet, and go home. No harm, no foul.

Then he sighed as the Ka-Bar snicked through the strip of cloth, dividing it in two. Hellhound was undoubtedly someone's daughter, and she was trying to do the right thing by the dogs. Also, she'd saved Chewie, so he owed her. "Hey!" he called out. "Cricket! Over here!"

She slowed to a stop and turned to look at him. Rolling one of the strips of cloth into a ball, he stuffed it into his right ear. She glanced from him to Hellhound and back, then raised a stubby metal cylinder to her throat. "Who are you?" she asked, the words distinct despite the raspy tone.

"I'm the Dark," he replied simply. "And I'm giving you one chance to back off and walk away." As he held her gaze, he balled up the second strip of cloth. _Take the option. Walk away._

"And what happens if I don't back off?" She began to walk toward him. Her whole attitude told him the story; she knew who he was, and didn't care. Which just meant that she hadn't heard _enough_ about him, or had decided that because she was a cape, she was better. Not an uncommon attitude among capes, he'd heard.

"You don't get to walk away." He shoved the other balled-up strip of cloth into his left ear. "I'm sorry, but that's the way it is." The makeshift earplugs functioned well enough. There was the faintest of sensations on the edge of nausea, but he'd dealt with worse in his time.

Again, she glanced from him to Hellhound and back, quite possibly judging whether to ignore him or take him out first. Holding out his hand, he made the classic come-at-me gesture, the hilt of his knife laying across his palm as he did so. That must have decided her, because she started toward him at a steady jog, her _kama_ at the ready.

* * *

 _When the odds are against you, change the odds._

 _Always assume the odds are stacked against you. If you believe this isn't the case, you're almost invariably mistaken._

 _Fair fights are never what they seem. If you seem to be in a fair fight, be assured someone will correct that error soon enough._

 _If defeat means death, then winning at any cost is the only sane strategy. Losing because you played fair has the same end result as just plain losing. So take advantage of every opportunity to stack the deck in your favour, because the other side most certainly will be._

 _Luck is the art of arranging for improved odds before your opponent's even aware there's going to be a fight._

 _In other words: if you're not winning, you're losing. If you're losing, you're not cheating hard enough._

 _ **\- from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert**_

* * *

From the moment Cricket started for him, Danny knew he was in for a fight. She was younger, faster and couldn't be blindsided. She was also an experienced combatant, but that played into the difference between them. He'd been doing this longer than her, he _knew_ how good she was, and she was used to being able to screw with her opponents using her power.

The adage about age and treachery versus youth and enthusiasm flitted through his mind, but he suppressed it. He didn't watch her hands or feet as she got close to him; instead, he watched her eyes. _Kama_ could be deadly weapons in the right hands—and if any hands were the right hands, hers definitely were—but in order to land a blow, they had to get through the enemy's guard.

As combatants, right then they were almost an even match. Danny was feeling a little bruised from the earlier fighting, but paradoxically it had also done a lot to knock the rust off. He'd never been more in the zone than he was right now. As it stood, he suspected he had a slight edge on her, but he intended to make that edge a lot bigger, while letting her think the opposite until it was all too late.

The first pass was almost formal. She came in fast, feinting with the right-hand _kama_ while seeking blood with the left. He could tell the wound she intended to leave would not be deep or greatly debilitating, but it would give her the measure of him. Accordingly, he blocked the feint with the Ka-Bar, sparks scraping off the steel, and pretended to awkwardly fall away from the true strike. For a split second, he thought she was going to fall into his trap and follow through while he appeared vulnerable, but as he brought the gun into line, she twisted away and disengaged.

Or at least, she tried to disengage, but he recovered fast and followed on. She brought the _kama_ into line, deflecting the Ka-Bar away from her body. The other _kama_ caught the barrel of the pistol, preventing him from aiming it at her; or rather, it would have if that was what he'd been trying to do. He squeezed the trigger three times rapidly, the gun hammering back into his palm. While the bullets missed her head by a good six inches, he saw her flinch as the waves of high-intensity sound hammered at her ears. Just the way he'd intended.

He wasted no time in capitalising on the momentary advantage he'd gained from overloading her hearing, bringing his shin up into her ribs. The impact was solid, knocking her sideways and off balance. A momentarily twitch in expression betrayed something going on behind her eyes; with any luck, she was feeling fear now. Fear meant a lack of confidence. It meant she'd be second-guessing the moves she normally pulled off flawlessly, slowing her down by that fraction of a second which meant the difference between winning and losing.

She threw a kick at his kneecap, an almost transparent ploy to push him back and give her space to manoeuvre. As a counter, he angled the pistol downward; the kick would connect, but in the process she was going to lose her own kneecap. It was the ultimate game of chicken. At the last second she flinched, swinging her leg away from the line of the shot and spoiling her own kick. His own kick at her other kneecap was already on the way, but even though she spotted it and tried to jump back out of the way, his boot still smashed into the side of her ankle.

She went down, but turned it into a roll and a handspring that got her back on to her feet. If Danny had given her a moment's respite, she might've recovered the initiative, but he had no intention of giving her that chance. Pushing in hard, he crowded her space, reducing her options. His next slash from the Ka-Bar was a feint but it drew a defence from one of her _kama_ anyway, more sparks flying off the steel. With her attention drawn the wrong way, he went in with the real attack, bringing the pistol into line. The second _kama_ came around to hook it away, but the move was hurried, lacking in her usual finesse. He twisted his wrist, tangling the pistol with the bladed weapon and yanking hard.

Faced with the choice to either let go or be forced to put her weight on to her bad ankle, she obviously decided that getting clear of him was the best option, so she released the _kama._ She wasn't quite done though; as her fingers let go the weapon, she reached for the pistol instead. Her fingers closed over the barrel, but an instant before her thumb clicked over the safety, he pulled the trigger. This time, the muzzle was a lot closer to her head, and the bullet went within half an inch of her ear.

He knew he'd scored, hard. Her face clenched in agony and her head jerked sideways as if she'd been physically struck. He was reasonably sure he'd just burst her eardrum, which had to _really_ hurt for someone whose hearing was sensitive enough to use for sonar. On the other hand, she was a cage fighter; there was only one way to put her down for good. The trouble was, killing a cape would cross a line he'd never crossed before. It would draw the attention of other capes; unwelcome attention.

 _She's seen my face. She could find out who I am. Killing whoever came after me wouldn't be a problem, but Taylor might be at risk anyway._ It was a no-brainer, really. As the knife went in under her breastbone, her eyes widened in pure shock. It didn't stop her from bringing the other _kama_ around and trying to bury it in his side, but he spoiled that at the cost of a minor slash to his forearm. They strained against each other for a moment, then she tried to kick him in the groin. He blocked the knee with his leg, then brought up his own knee and jammed it against the hilt of the knife. As the blade moved in the wound, her grip on his gun weakened fractionally. Making a supreme effort, he twisted the weapon from her grip, flicked the safety off again, and shot her in the face from a range of less than six inches.

* * *

 _If you're going to kill, kill._

 _Don't mess around and don't try to be fancy. Above all, if you want to send a message, don't do it by killing someone. Western Union works just fine. The only message a death should convey is that someone needed to be made dead._

 _On the other side of the coin, if you do choose to kill someone, be aware that it's up to you to own it. You thought it was necessary at the time, so don't agonise over it and don't ever second-guess yourself._

 _Once someone's dead, they're dead. If you're a professional killer, you've got enough to worry about without having the ghosts of your targets living in your head as well._

 _Of course, if the person you killed has friends, that_ _ **is**_ _something to worry about, which is why a quick, quiet kill is best. Sometimes, of course, despite your best efforts, shit will impact the fan at high velocity, and you've got a decision to make. There are now people after you, and you have exactly two options; evasion or dissuasion._

 _How permanent you make the dissuasion is up to you._

 _ **\- from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert**_

* * *

Panting, Danny stood over the body of his first cape kill, smoking gun still in his hand. Even though she _looked_ dead, with half her brains sprayed over several square yards, he still kicked away the remaining _kama_ before retrieving the Ka-Bar, automatically wiping it off on her clothing. Reaching up, he plucked the wads of cloth from his ears, sound returning to his world with a jolt. When he looked toward the other end of the warehouse, he saw Hellhound dealing with the caged dogs, prioritising that over joining in the fight.

She wasn't an idiot, though; her monster dogs were on guard, watching his every move. Juggling his weapons from one hand to the other, he shrugged out of the Empire jacket. It had long since served its purpose, and would be more of a drawback than a convenience from here on in. Shaking it out, he draped it over Cricket's face, more as a civilised gesture than an act of conscience.

He had no more reason to be here. The Empire punk who took Chewie was dead, as was the cape who would've killed Hellhound; all he needed now was to take his dog and go home. Which depended on exactly how reasonable Hellhound was going to be about it. He didn't want to have to kill a second cape tonight, especially one who'd saved Chewie's life, but Taylor's well-being was of utmost importance to him. Nothing else mattered.

At some point during the struggle, Cricket had found the magazine release and activated it, though she hadn't been able to work the action to remove the chambered round. Picking up the magazine and shoving it into his pocket, Danny used the Ka-Bar to hook the shoulder seam of his shirt. With a hole started, he yanked down on the cloth, ripping the sleeve clear of the shirt. Wrapping the sleeve around his forearm wound, he tied a knot and used his teeth to help tighten it. There was a first-aid kit at home, with disinfectant and proper bandages; once he got Chewie home, he'd deal with the cut properly. All he needed to do right now was—

"What the shit?" The new voice came from the same entrance Cricket had used. It was masculine and rough, and Danny had a fair idea who it belonged to. "Who the fuck?" Slowly, he turned, not wanting to be right. But of course, he was. Facing him, outlined in the glow of lights from outside the building, was a familiar silhouette. "Cricket!" The word was a bellow, with faint metallic undertones.

"Hookwolf," sighed Danny. "Why did it have to be Hookwolf?" He knew why, of course; in the circles that mattered, the brawny Changer's name was inextricably linked with Brockton Bay's underground dog-fighting scene. But he could've been gone before the Empire cape ever showed up. If he'd just been a little faster. If he'd cared a little less about debts owed. "Cricket's not here any more," he called back. "Take her away for burial. Fight's over." _Take the hint. Let the fight be over._

Hookwolf's tone changed, even as steel bands and plates slid into place to cover him. "Holy fuck, is that you? Is that the Dark?" He advanced into the warehouse steadily, warily. "Heard you were fuckin' dead, man." Danny made sure he was standing in a patch of shadow, so the Empire brawler couldn't see his face clearly. They'd met before, years ago, and since Hookwolf hadn't seen his face then, Danny didn't see any reason to change that now. "What the fuck you doin' here?"

"My business." Danny made his voice as clipped as possible. "Helping out Hellhound. She gave me a hand, so she keeps the dogs. Empire keeps the money." Well, _technically_ he was helping the Lindt girl. He'd take Chewie, she could take the rest. And he was also helping her by making sure Hookwolf didn't interfere.

"So what, you're working for them now? The Underbitches?" Now Hookwolf was about twenty feet away. Gleaming metal covered nearly all of his body. "You kill Cricket for them?" His tone was accusatory. "Thought you didn't go after capes."

Danny sighed. This wasn't going well, but maybe he could still turn it around. "Not on contract. Something got stolen. I came to get it back. Hellhound gave me a hand. Cricket wouldn't back off. Gave her the chance. She didn't take it." He spun the Ka-Bar in his hand, flipped it into the air and caught the point between finger and thumb. "You still got the chance to walk away. Take it. Come back in half an hour."

Hookwolf presented a problem for Danny. He couldn't be shot or stabbed, or even hit with a car. Or rather, he _could_ be, but it wouldn't stick. Which wasn't to say Danny didn't have a way of taking him down, but the way was likely permanent, and he _still_ didn't want to have to kill another cape tonight.

Slowly, the metal-covered man shook his head, eliciting a light scrape of steel on steel. "Sorry, man. Cricket's one of mine, y'know? She's not just Empire. She's a fighter like me. Someone puts her in the ground, I gotta make that someone pay, even it it's you that did it. It's a fighter thing. You understand." He sounded regretful, but there was an implacable determination underlying his words.

Danny nodded. "I understand." He flipped the Ka-Bar up again without looking, and let the hilt slap into his palm. "Hope you don't mind if I've got other ideas, though." Every element of his bearing was carefully calculated to give the appearance of rock-solid confidence without betraying his actual plan. Even the slightest hint of weakness or pleading would likely goad Hookwolf into attacking instead of playing along.

For a long moment, Hookwolf stared at him, then he burst out laughing. "Holy shit, you're serious." He shook his head again, this time in wonderment. "I know you—I mean, I don't know you _that_ good, but I know you—and you're as good as they get, but you're no cape. There's no fuckin' way you're gonna come out on top against me."

Danny took the magazine from his pocket and slid it into the pistol, then worked the slide. He had the Ka-Bar in his other hand, the blade protruding below his fist. It had worked just fine on Cricket, but as both he and Hookwolf well knew, there was no way even Danny's skill would get it past the Empire cape's metallic integument. Nor would the pistol be of much use as an offensive weapon—but then, Danny didn't intend to employ it as one.

Baring his teeth, he mustered up a growl from deep in his throat. The knife came up and he launched himself at Hookwolf, the growl rising to the closest thing to a roar he could manage. Hookwolf reacted predictably enough; springing spikes, claws and blades from his anatomy as he leaped toward Danny. Gunfire echoed once more through the warehouse as Danny opened fire at close range, the rounds sparking off of the steel blades criss-crossing over Hookwolf's eyes.

He didn't expect it to do any lasting harm, but the sparks obscured Hookwolf's vision for just long enough. Before the gunshots, he'd been leading to the right; Hookwolf's left. At the last moment, he cut to the left and went down in a diving roll. Hookwolf's bladed slash split the air above him, but by the time the Empire enforcer realised what he'd done, Danny was on his feet and sprinting for the exit.

Correction; not _specifically_ for the exit. For Cricket's discarded motorbike. Behind him, he heard the sound of metal scraping on concrete as Hookwolf tried to stop and turn around. It seemed being covered in steel didn't make cornering easy; who knew? Still, he was fully aware that his window of opportunity wasn't very large; in fact, it was rather minuscule. He recalled, back in the day, dancing on the very edge of catastrophe in this very same manner and glorying in the fact. _I was an idiot._

Reaching the motorcycle, he shoved the pistol down the back of his pants—not without a shiver of distaste—and wrenched it upright. There was no place to put the knife, so he stabbed it into the rear of the pillion seat then swung his leg over the bike. The headlight was smashed and it had no doubt stalled—and possibly flooded—when Cricket made her entrance, so he held the clutch in while he jiggled the gear lever down to the lowest setting. Then he flicked the kickstarter out with his foot and kicked it over. The engine refused to start.

Directly ahead of him, Hookwolf had managed to stop and turn, and was now heading back for him. He was extruding more metal, assuming his 'wolf' form as his metal claws tore at the concrete floor. Danny kicked the engine over again and felt it almost catch. Without pausing—Hookwolf was just seconds away by now—he kicked it a third time. This time, the engine kicked over and roared to life, blasting great volumes of blue smoke everywhere as he revved the engine. It was already in gear so he let the clutch out, screeched the back tyre in a half circle and let the brake off.

Leaning forward on the bike, throttle twisted to the max, Danny blasted out of the doorway and on to the surrounding concrete paving, heading straight for the row of cars. Uncomfortably close behind him, he heard the clattering of metal striking concrete, and pulled the kind of sharp turn that motorbikes excel at. He heard the shriek of steel on concrete as a claw missed the back wheel by inches, then a roar of frustration and anger was followed by a loud crash. A glance over his shoulder told him that Hookwolf had not only failed to take the turn, but had also ploughed into one of the vehicles. There was a 'dog chasing parked car' joke somewhere in there, but he decided to let it be.

About fifty yards further on, he slowed to a stop and looked back. Hookwolf was pulling himself out of the damaged vehicle; for all that he was covered in steel, he looked _pissed._ Looking around, he spotted Danny and pointed at him. "I'm going to kill you!" he roared; his voice sounded like blades clashing deep in his throat. "You can't run far enough to get away from me!"

"The game's called follow the leader," Danny called back. "Can't you take a little challenge?" Reaching out, he made the same come-at-me gesture he'd made to Cricket, and with much the same result. This urge to take up any gauntlet thrown down was a weakness they really should address, he figured. Not that he was about to fill them in; it was too useful to him right then. Had Hookwolf been of a more contemplative nature, he might've figured it out in time. Unfortunately for the Empire cape, he was rapidly running out of time, even if he didn't know it.

As Hookwolf lunged forward, Danny gunned the bike again, the back tyre leaving a thick black mark on the concrete. He peeled out of there on to the street, aware that Hookwolf was cutting the corner and gaining precious yards by doing so. As Danny twisted the throttle, the metal-clad villain tried to pounce at him, but misjudged the bike's acceleration and hit the asphalt barely three yards behind it. Chunks of gravel-infused tar flew into the air as Hookwolf clawed at the ground, trying to establish traction. By the time he got himself straightened out, Danny was six yards ahead and gaining. Of course, he wasn't gaining _too_ much; he wanted Hookwolf to be able to keep up with him, after all.

* * *

 _Most people can be killed with minimal effort. A knife pulled across the throat or slipped between the ribs, or a single gunshot at moderate range. If you've done your job right, they don't see it coming and you're free and clear to exfil._

 _Other jobs are harder. People who are more paranoid—but of course it's not paranoia if there really is an assassin seeking your death—make our job so much more difficult. Disguises, trickery and sometimes really high-end sniper rifles all have their part to play in such kills._

 _Then there's the problematic ones, where you can't bring the weapon to the victim. Those are the ones where you have to lure them to their own death. The trick is to do this without letting them know what's going on._

 _ **\- from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert**_

* * *

 **Hookwolf**

* * *

While Brad didn't know the Dark to have beers with, he'd spoken to them once or twice, back in the day. He'd been fresh on the cape scene, and the number of kills attributed to the Dark was impressive, so he'd been respectful. Not that they made a big deal of things; the shadows were their thing. Brad had never so much as seen their faces. But the one thing he knew even then was that the Dark never went after capes. Which was, considering their fuckin' fearsome rep, probably a good thing.

Time had passed, and things had changed for the worse. Cricket was dead at the hands of the Dark. He'd known they were good, but taking down Cricket was very fuckin' impressive indeed. Especially when there was only one of them on scene. Of course, this now meant he'd have to kill the guy. Which sucked for the Dark, but they _were_ only normals, after all. Against a cape, especially a cape like him, there was no way this ended well for them.

The noise of the motorbike echoed between the buildings, giving him his bearings. He pushed himself a little harder, wondering why the guy had come this way, into the Docks. Maybe he'd thought he could give Hookwolf the slip in unfamiliar surroundings. Fat chance; that bike was way too loud to lose.

Galloping past the frontage of the Dockworkers Association offices, he followed the sound of the bike engine around the corner to the left. Cutting across the pavement, he shaved time off the turn just in time to see the red tail-light turn the next corner, this time to the right. As he surged forward, he heard a gunshot. Nothing came near him, so whoever the Dark was shooting at, it wasn't him. _Fuck, I hope some gangbanger hasn't fucked him up before I can get to him._ The Dark was going to die, but he deserved a proper death, with all the respect due him.

His claws scraping on the concrete sidewalk, he powered around the corner and down the next street. He almost missed the gate hanging open, if it hadn't been for the metallic crash that came from within. Slowing down, he turned and went back. It was a wrecker's yard, and the gate had been roughly pushed back into position. But once he got close enough, he could see that the chain was hanging down, and the lock was lying on the ground, busted open by a gunshot. Inside was in darkness, except for the red glow of a familiar-looking motorbike tail-light … but it looked like the bike was on its side. _What the fuck happened here?_

Shoving the gate aside, he stalked on in, head turning from side to side in case the Dark tried something stupid, like pushing a junked car over on him. Not that the guy had the muscle to do that, but he _did_ have a rep. And then, when he got closer, he saw what had happened, and he laughed out loud. The bike was on its side next to a heavy crane or something, and the Dark was trapped under it, trying to lift it off and failing. He looked up at Brad's approach; the red glow of the tail-light reflected off of his glasses.

"End of the fuckin' line, man." Brad shook his head. "Led me a good chase. I'll make it quick for you." He flexed his hands, and long sharp claws extended from his metallic paws. "Any last words?"

"That's funny," said the guy on the ground. "I was about to say exactly the same thing." He lifted a bulky rectangular object off the ground, and in the dimness, Brad saw for the first time the heavy cord that trailed back into the darkness, up into the machinery overhead. There were lit-up buttons on the control module, and the Dark pressed a big green one.

Right at that moment, Brad got a really bad feeling. He'd been chasing this guy halfway across town, and he'd been led to this very spot. To where the guy wanted him. In the middle of a car wrecking yard. "Oh, shi—" he began, as he tried to leap out of the way. He wasn't fast enough, as an invisible force grabbed him and yanked him upward. He smashed into the underside of the gigantic electromagnet with stunning force, finding himself pinned on his back with his arms outstretched, looking down at the Dark. Who easily lifted the motorcycle off himself and got up.

 _Fuck. He played me, every step of the way. But I can get out of this._ "You better run, asshole!" he shouted. "You better run and never stop. Because once I get down from here, I'm gonna hunt you down and rip your guts out. You won't kill me as easy as you did Cricket." He began to struggle, trying to pull himself free, to no avail. The magnet was too strong. But it occurred to him that if he worked his way sideways to the edge of it, he could maybe pull free then …?

The Dark shook his head. "Hookwolf, Cricket was the tough one. I had this planned for you ever since I learned about your powerset. How do you think I knew how to arrange this trap at such short notice?" His tone was almost paternal, chiding. "And you're not going to pull free that way. All I have to do is step up the gain, and your front armour's going to come back to meet the rest of it. It'll _blend_ you." He pressed another button on the control box, and Brad felt the metal over the front of his body start to press down.

"I can absorb the metal again!" Brad shouted his defiance. "This magnet won't hold shit then!" He began the process; it wasn't easy and it wasn't fun, but it was his only way out. Of course, the Dark would be long gone before he'd finished, but he'd get the guy in the end.

"Really." The Dark gestured at Brad's face. "And about your wolf mask? Can you absorb that too?" He put his finger on a particular button, then paused and looked up. "I gave you the chance to back off. This is on you. Any last words?"

Brad struggled uselessly. "Just do it!" he bellowed. He stared Death in the eye, and the Dark stared back.

The second-last thing Brad heard was a rising whine above him. The _last_ thing he heard was the bones of his skull beginning to collapse under the pressure.

* * *

 **Danny**

* * *

Blood dripped down from the corpse pinned to the overhead electromagnet. Danny waited until the last twitching had ended, then he cut the power. Hookwolf's mangled body fell to earth, landing with a clatter as some of the metal armour was jolted loose. Stepping up to the corpse, he took careful aim and shot Hookwolf where the armour didn't quite cover the back of his neck, just in case. Then he mounted the cycle, kicked over the engine, and headed for the gate.

* * *

 **Bitch**

* * *

Nobody else from the Empire had showed up, which was good. Rachel lugged the last of the dog-cages out to the pickup she'd come in, and strapped it down. She was just about to climb into the cab, where the puppy sat waiting patiently, when she heard the sound of an approaching motorbike. It sounded remarkably familiar, and the puppy started to whine. "Sh!" she told it, quieting it, as she turned to see who was coming. Alongside the pickup, the dogs she had on guard began to growl, and she quieted them too.

It was the guy from before, the one who'd fought Cricket and whom she'd last seen leaving on the motorbike with Hookwolf in hot pursuit. He stopped about twenty feet away, in a patch of darkness between two lights, and got off the bike. "Where's the puppy?" he asked.

"What happened to Hookwolf?" she countered. There was no way she was just giving the puppy away to some random asshole.

"Better for you if you don't know," he said flatly. "I'm here for my puppy. Where is he?" She wasn't good at human body language, but something about him screamed 'predator' to her.

She jerked her head upward. "Prove he's yours," she called back.

He might have smiled; she wasn't sure. Then he put two fingers to his mouth and whistled shrilly. In the cab, the pup perked his ears up and started yapping. Then he scrambled across the seat and down on to the floor of the pickup. Launching himself from the open door, he landed on the concrete with an audible _oof,_ then picked himself up and scampered off toward the tall man in the shadows. As the pup got close, the guy knelt down and gathered him up. Rachel watched him let the pup lick his face and scratch the floppy ears in return. "Thanks," he called out. Then he turned and started walking away.

"Wait!" Rachel normally wouldn't have pushed things this far, but she had to know. "Who the hell _are_ you?"

He asked a question then, and walked off leaving her scratching her head. What did he mean, was she afraid of the dark?

* * *

 _Some may think that because I accept money to kill people, I am a common murderer, indiscriminate in whom I target. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I command high prices because I'm very good at what I do; if I'm going to kill someone, I need to be sure that the client really wants them dead. When there's no money involved, I'm not motivated to go out and kill people. There's no reason for me to do so._

 _Right up until the well-being of my family is threatened. Once that happens, all bets are off._

 _ **\- from the collected notes of Daniel Hebert**_

* * *

 **Next Morning**

 **Taylor**

* * *

The door to her hospital room opened, and Taylor heard a familiar yapping. "Dad!" she cried out, her face lighting up with the biggest smile in the world. "Chewie! I've missed you so much!" She watched as he set the pet-carrier down on the bed and opened it, then giggled in delight as Chewie scrambled out and made his way up on to her lap. His warm wriggly form snuggled up to her and he licked her face, then she buried her face in his fur.

"We've missed you too, honey," her dad said fondly as he carefully lowered himself into a chair. "So how was your night?" Reaching out, he gave Chewie a scratch behind the ear.

Taylor wrinkled her nose. "It was boring, and Chewie wasn't here," she complained, then giggled again as Chewie licked her nose. "How about you?"

He shrugged off-handedly. "Oh, we had a little bit of excitement. Chewie got himself lost, but I found him again pretty quickly. That was about it, though." Giving her a smile, he leaned back in his chair. "After that, we had a quiet night in."

* * *

End of Part Two


End file.
